Japanese Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama of the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) announced his resignation today, just nine months after winning an historic mandate. More significant, the “shadow shogun,” kingmaker Ichiro Ozawa, stepped down from his post as DPJ secretary general. The ruling party is in disarray ahead of crucial upper-house elections next month.

The dramatic developments occurred just days after Hatoyama said he had abandoned his campaign pledge to move Marine Air Station Futenma off crowded Okinawa. Instead, he would, with the United States, build a new American facility in Henoko, a less populated part of the island. For months, the prime minister had been unable to make up his mind as to what to do, signaling change after change in his views. As a result of the controversial decision, announced Friday, the Social Democratic Party left the ruling three-party coalition. That triggered fresh calls for the increasingly unpopular Hatoyama to resign.

Hatoyama is the country’s 92nd prime minister — and the fifth in four years. Since the charismatic Junichiro Koizumi left office in September 2006 after serving a half decade, the country has endured a series of weak leaders, Shinzo Abe, Yasuo Fukuda, and Taro Aso. Last August, the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP), which had ruled the country almost without interruption since 1955, lost to Hatoyama’s Democratic Party of Japan in a landslide. Since then, the LDP has splintered and the DPJ has sunk in the polls.

So the question arises: Can anyone govern Japan? Everyone blames Hatoyama’s indecisiveness for his stunning fall from grace. And he is no doubt responsible for the unfortunate turn of events, as he admitted today. “It is extremely sad that no one is listening to me anymore,” he said as he told the Japanese public he was leaving office. “That is all due to my own failings.”

Maybe not. Yes, Hatoyama is a “rich kid without experience and leadership skills” as one Tokyo academic bluntly labeled him. And there is no doubt he fully earned his nickname, the “Alien.” But in fairness to the departing prime minister, he presided over a Japan that has lost its way. As Douglas MacArthur perceptively noted, the Japanese are fearsome when they are on the offensive and aimless when they are not.

And at this moment, the people of Japan are still thinking about their nation and their role in the world, questioning almost everything. Their numbers are shrinking, their political system is disintegrating, and their ambitions are narrowing. While this is happening, they are being overtaken by the Chinese, whom they both fear and admire. This year, in all probability, China will grab Japan’s title as the world’s second largest economy. The Chinese appear on the march throughout Asia, seemingly set to claim ownership of the century the Japanese were once supposed to dominate.

There is no consensus among Japan’s people as to what to do, and it will be hard for anyone, however capable, to govern them effectively. The most likely candidate to succeed the hapless Hatoyama is Finance Minister Naoto Kan. Other possibilities are Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada, National Strategy Minister Yoshito Sengoku, and Minster of Land Seiji Maehara.

42 Comments, 24 Threads

1.
Rebelsliberator

Hmm ill have to pay more attention to Japan and China.Its possible the Japanese are getting nervous about these military movements by china.Maybe America should not pull out of japan just yet.That reverses an early call of mine to remove US forces from okinawa.
The Korean incident certainly would give me pause if i lived in Japan.Ill need more info though.

Good plan. It no longer takes a massive multi-year military buildup
to become a power player; If I had to bet, I would say the Japanese
have done all the design and test work for a breakout, if threatened.

@ 2. bill: Pacific War Crimes

They played according to the rules of the game in that part of the world;
If the US had understood those rules there need not have been a Pacific War.

“If the US had understood those rules there need not have been a Pacific War.”

Seriously?

So we (and the Brits) should have just let them ‘own’ the Pacific – China – Australia and everything in between? Wonderful strategy. Hell – we should have let Hitler overrun Russia – England – the ME – and Africa too. Then let Japan and Germany divvy up the ‘in-between’ – which would have been the USA.

Someone should have explained that to China (Manchuria) – which was invaded by Japan in 1931 and began chipping away on China until 1937 when they began full scale war on China.

Um, fool? They DIDN’T play according to the “rules of the game” anywhere, EVEN in “that part of the world.”

They violated our agreements with them over China. They refused to abide by the laws of war. They walked out of the League of Nations, which not even Stalin did (he was thrown out). They launched an illegal and unprovoked attack on the West. By all accounts, they were a rouge state of the worst kind bordering on a death cult. If anybody could have done more with learning the “rules of the game in that part of the world”, it was Tokyo.

Nothing like a bully (China/Nort) to give a rudderless country a sense of direction. Japan has alternately loathed and loved our presence there – certainly not as hot/cold as in S. Korea – but the resentment sometimes surfaces.

Makes you wonder if/when the Philippines will want us to move back into Subic Bay.

I’m sometimes jealous of the parliamentary form of government. I wonder how long our Kenyan POTUS would last if we had parliamentary government.

I watch Japanese news daily. They hardly ever even mention N. Korea, but spend hours talking about getting rid of US bases. I can’t understand it. If I was this close to a crack pot who was shooting test missles over my country, I would want the US sticking around.

To make it worse the Japanese news agencies simply pick up feeds from ABC and NBC, and the Japanese see these reports as an unbiased picture of how American’s think. Scary Huh?

By the way, if the N. Koreans were to make any more aggressive moves towards S. Korea, the lead story in Japan would be the corruption in Sumo, or some pop star getting a divorce. Then they would spend another 15-minutes interviewing Hideki Matsui. The MSM everywhere has gone clueless.

Germany seems to be in a very similar position to Japan; there are massive structural problems with both countries’ anti-competition economic models, both are facing an increasingly smaller workforce propping up more and more elderly, both risk losing their position in the world, and both seem to be convinced America is their enemy. Add to that the fact that apparently Germany and Japan are not able at the moment to provide a government that the voters are happy with and it makes me wonder if they decided to stay on the same page post WW2 as well.

Anti-competition economic models”? It depends on how you define competition. “Both risk losing their position in the world”? I hope so. “..both are convinced America is their enemy”. Reading the Anglo-American press, we feel a bit neglected: At present it seems that enemy No. 1 are Muslim countries. But I am sure we are your most-loved and most faithful enemies.

Two points were touched on. The lost decade (longer now) and North Korea.

The Bushido Code does not allow failure, so we see a plethora of zombie banks in
Japan.

As for North Korea, given how wobbly Downing Street has become regarding nations
defending themselves, Tokyo had best be in touch with Taipei, Seoul, Canberra, Wellington & Ottawa. The US cannot pay back what it has borrowed, and this is
being felt in the geopolitical realm. So, time to initiate plan “b”, for increased reliance on the US is simply out of the question.

“Left on their own, the Japanese could take another decade to decide what to do with…”

Excuse me—but does Japan have ten more years to “decide what to do with” anything? This is another nation that does not have enough children. Its rapidly aging population dominates the country’s politics and economic activity. Japan does not appear to have much of a future.

Japan and Europe have the common experience of being spoiled under the US protective umbrella. They hate us for being strong but yet need us when they’re in trouble. They buy our debt and effectively rent our military in doing so.

There are many in Japan who would like to at least be more assertive in foreign affairs but the problem is that, like MacArthur said, it’s an all-or-nothing affair: either they go completely militaristic or they’re weak and aimless. They haven’t found a way to balance a strong military with a merciful one. We do that a lot better, thought I think even we are erring on the side of caution way too much these days.

I suspect Japan will continue to be aimless until the Norks blow a hole in one of their cities. Then you might be surprise on how quickly they change.

It’s looking all too much like the PRC, and their buddy Lil’ Kim, are taking a page from Japan’s history. Unfortunately, it’s the page headed “Tanaka Memorial” and “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”.

The recent aggressive behavior (there’s no way to sugarcoat it, no matter how much The One tries) of NK and the PRC in the West Pacific strongly indicates that both are out to build empires- never mind that the rest of the world thinks that the “Age of Empire” is past. (Some people just never get the memo.) They look across the Sea of Japan, South China Sea, and even the West Pacific, and see a lot of low-hanging fruit waiting to be plucked, with nobody guarding it who is serious about doing so or has the capability even if they are serious.

Yes, I know the U.S. Navy is serious on both counts; I also know that our present administration in DC isn’t, and they make the decisions, at least until the shooting starts. The other powers in the region are either underarmed, have governments which don’t take the threat seriously, or both.

The most likely short-term outcome is increasing Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAAN) presence in areas we’d rather not have them in, notably the South China Sea and as far south and east as New Guinea. This is called “force projection”, and they appear to be serious about it.

The next-nearest term outcome is North Korea getting more aggressive toward South Korea and Japan both. This is well in keeping with Lil’ Kim’s derangements, and most probably ends up with him playing “Mussolini in Ethiopia and Greece”- with China in the role’ of… guess who?

The combination of the two will almost inevitably lead to the next outcome level. That being Japan becoming a nuclear-weapons power. And probably not the only one around, either. (Think Taiwan.)

It’s starting to look like the late 1930s all over again west of the International Dateline. Just with the roles reversed, is all.

He ran on getting the US presence in Okinawa reduced. Unlike our president, he realized that it was neither a viable objective anymore, nor achievable. Unlike our president, he resigned when he turned out to be a failure.

@bill, We won. We hanged those convicted of war crimes. The Imperial Japanese government is ended. Most of that generation are now dead, including all who were in positions of authority on both sides.

Perhaps Rome should apologize to Carthage, or we should dig up Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee…

Japanese news from the US, if one watches NHK here, is either ABC or CNN. Michael Moore is fairly popular and most foreigners working as English teachers are fashionable green statists, although those at language schools are perhaps less free to work indoctrination into the material.

US bases are more of a NIMBY issue, in my opinion. People who live by them usually dislike them and want them gone, especially when a US soldier runs down, stabs, or rapes someone. However, those who don’t live near bases seem to acknowledge–are they being polite or honest?–that having the bases is good for Japan. Especially when the bases are mainly way down in Okinawa, which isn’t as Japanese as the rest of the nation, historically and culturally.

The situation here in Japan is bad. My hope is for more immigration, but that’s likely to stay off the table. Bring in the Filipinos!

1. Japanese administrations have not been so short-lived just by accident. Kan Naoto will be chosen tomorrow as the seventh prime minister since the turn of the century but there is no reason to believe he will be an exception.

2. At the last minute, Hatoyama chose to die on each other’s swords with Ozawa, but just stripping his de facto boss of party secretaryship doesn’t make any difference to his position as the Shadow Shogun, at least until their party dissolves or split up.

America bought and paid for Okinawa – in blood! We should stay as long as we feel like it and the Japanese should STFU!

Japan is lucky Gen. McArthur was in charge when Japan surrendered or there might not BE any Japan as such today. As near as I can tell from their attitudes, the Japanese do not regret that their grandfathers started a war; they only regret they lost it! They don’t acknowledge Japan’s responsibility for death and suffering across the Westpac. They’ve “moved on”; it was “a long time ago”! Try telling that to all those Marines buried on Okinawa, Iwo Jima, and all those other miserable little islands!

If I were President, I would tell the Japanese people that America was going to stay on Okinawa for as long as a single American was buried there! Okinawa is ours; we simply allow the Japanese to indulge the illusion it still belongs to them. There is a simple rule that goes back to the beginning of civilization: territory captured in war time belongs to the VICTORS! This doctrine should extend to Iwo Jima and Saipan as well; and any other Japanese territory Americans died fighting for.

F_ ‘em! We tried to be nice; we tried to respect their culture; we tried to do the rignt thing: and what do we get in return? Abuse! I think it is well past time America stopped trying to be a “nice guy” on the world! It’s time to get back to some “Big Stick” diplomacy and remind the world who’s the big dog in the yard! Bowing and scraping and kowtowing is unseemly for Americans to do; figurtively as well as literally!!!

I understand your indignation, but it’s hard for the big dog to bark very loudly when he’s in hock to China and depends too much on the Arabs for fuel. These hindrances do tend to muzzle the bolder bellowing.

Now, if he would only get back to his old habits of self-reliance, then he might stand proudly like the doughty mastiff he once was.

We already returned Okinawa to Japan. Are you proposing another war to reclaim Okinawa? Perhaps we can fire bomb Tokyo and nuke Hiroshima while we are at it.

What you think you can tell about the Japanese and their attitudes is, in my experience, wrong. I lived there for five years, met quite a few Japnese, taught many, and married one. I am confident that I know far more about the subject than you.

Good for you! Since you brought it up, do you disagree with the bombings of Tokyo and Hiroshima? Would you prefer that we would have invaded, no matter how many dead Americans, Australians, Russians & etc. would have resulted? How about all of the JAPANESE who would have died? Surely, you must have some compassion for THEM? (Even if you could care less about the non-Japanese casualties.)

Nevertheless, the Japanese people have no complaints coming about US servicemen on Okinawa.

And no, I do not recommend we go to war with Japan (DUH!). Rather, I recommend we take a harder line against Japan until a more responsible tone is received in return; to us and all Asia.

Finally, I don’t know what you think the Japanese people think, but they’ve made their views quite clear regarding Americans on Okinawa.

Wars have consequences; they last a long time; sometimes they last forever! I, personally have little sympathy with the people of Okinawa and their complaints when looking at the big picture and through the prism of history. You appear to have chosen to “forgive and forget”; I have not.

Well, bubblehead, it’s easy to have little sympathy when you have little knowledge. The people on Okinawa had little choice in what happened to them. They were used by their Japanese masters as pawns and war fodder, and suffered horribly for it. Then the Americans come in, and Okinawa rightly wonders why – 65 years later – it is responsible for hosting the vast majority of American servicemen. People who call grudge mongering looking at the “prism of history” are usually people who bring on other wars in the future. Hitler did it, the Koreans are doing it, Mao did it to kill far more Chinese and wipe out an entire culture – far than even the most sinister Japanese could ever have dreamed of doing.

Japan has a future, I think. But it’s a Chinese future. Japanese have largely given up, and have no drive. They may be aroused someday, but by then the demographics will have kicked in. They will eventually welcome Chinese influence, energy and investment. And I say that as someone who has spent most of 20 years in Japan, with children and and relatives who are Japanese.

Once-upon-a-time, (as you surely know), Okinawans were not Japanese, but were a distinct culture. In the main, those days are long gone. The people of Okinawa can claim victim status if they wish, but they should direct such complaints to the Japanese government, not to the Americans.

There is a very simple reason Americans are still on Okinawa; it is in America’s AND Japan’s strategic interest to have those troops there. Regrettably, American troops are the only stabilizing influence in the region and all parties (except China) welcome them. The Okinawan NIMBY complaint is churlish and ignorant.

Your assessment of Japan’s future is grim. I hope you have been talking to the wrong Japanese. Japan has stood up to China since the days of Kublai Kahn (at least) and it would be a shame for China’s “Long View of History” to be proven right. I would hope that, when push comes to shove, the Japanese people will reject becoming “Borged” by China, regardless of what the feckless leadership might be willing to accept. If Japan falls under China’s controlling influence, then all of Asia and the WestPac are doomed, and THAT spells serious trouble for the US, South Korea and particularly Taiwan!

As an aside: you are the second person to mention that they are related to Japanese, so you “know” what the Japanese think. I can hope that you are mistaken because I know that if you lived in Berkely, CA (for instance) and talked to people there, you would have a wholly skewed and false impression of America and Americans.

It needn’t really be the NORKS, Chinese, bases or any one foreign-policy issue; Hatoyama took office with polling numbers less than 50% favorable and has slid from there. The Japanese electorate vote their pocketbooks just like the American, and are getting increasingly frustrated by the economic stagnation of the Lost Decade+. When we sent Jimmy Carter packing his asinine foreign policy was just icing on the recessionary cake.

Why shouldn’t it. Beijing releases the data that is wanted by those gaijin who conduct business in China. Given the extent the Politburo has ties to ostensibly free enterprise, the old game of control is tough to end.

There are certain things that cannot be faked, and frankly the assessments of Marc Faber go a long way in disproving what comes out of the Beijing Politburo, and its catspaws wherever they are.

Remember, gaijin (which by the way has racist overtones in any of the Chinese languages) only get to see what the hosts want them to see. For, a lot more is off limits than military bases there.

On top of everything Japan has the over taxed and unbelievably wasteful spending disease that seems common to democracies these days (See Greek Disease, Great Britain and the US). Japan’s governmental corruption is also bad because of the one party domination of the government all these years. When the government starts to dip into the postal savings it will be all over. They may have already started that I haven’t kept close track. The Japanese state they no longer have a government of checks and balances it is all just one big co-op to line pockets with tax money with no responsibility for bad decisions. If the Japanese public ever snaps there will be blood in the streets.

If the Japanese public ever snaps? The median age is sixty. Just exactly what are those old duffers going to do about their society collapsing? The population is falling. Each younger generation is half the size of the last one. Japan has gone into the same irreversible decline that all smothering government-run societies inevitably fall into. Does America still have a government of checks and balances? I seem to see a lot of ‘lining pockets with tax money with no responsibility for bad decisions’ around here, too. Its the disease of our times. Socialism. It leads to national death.